Visiting Eastwood-Some Memorandums for Lawrence Studies
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Visiting Eastwood-Some Memorandums for Lawrence Studies 著者 TERADA Akio journal or Memoirs of the Muroran Institute of publication title Technology. Cultural science volume 44 page range 1-18 year 1994-11-25 URL http://hdl.handle.net/10258/617 Visiting Visiting EastwoodSome Memorandums for Lawrence Studies Visiting Visiting Eastwood-Some Memorandums for for Lawrence Studies~ Akio Terada Abstract 1 had sev 巴ral opportunities of visiting the Eastwood district ， D. H. Lawrence's birth place ， during my stay in England in 1992-93. As is weII known ，Lawrence frequently used used the Nottingham area as the setting of his novels. To have knowledge about the writer's writer's backgrounds wiII be of much help in understanding his fiction and sometimes be criticaIIy criticaIIy important. Lawrence was so much affected by both social backgrounds and natural natural surroundings in his formative years that visiting Eastwood would be essential to Lawrence study. Of course ，from the viewpoint of literary criticism ，it must be kept in mind that there is little meaning in comparison between fact and fiction. This paper consists consists of coIIected materials and quotations from various Ii t巴rary writings and letters. Therefore Therefore at present moment this remains to be used as some memorandums for further studies. studies. -1- Akio Akio T 巴rada Nottingham's Nottingham's New University In In N ottingham ， that dismal town where 1 went to school and college ， they've they've built a new university for for a new dispensation of knowledge. Built Built it most grand and cakeily Out of the noble loot derived derived from shrewd cash-chemistry by good Sir J esse Boot. Little Little 1 thought ，when 1 was a lad and turned my modest penny over over on Boo t' s Cash Chemis t' s counter ， that that Jesse ，by turning many millions millions of similar honest pence over ，would make a pile that that would rise at last and blossom out in in grand and cakey style into into a university where smart men would dispense doses doses of smart cash-chemistry in in language of common-sense! That future N ottingham lads would be -2- Visiting Visiting Eastwood-Some M 巴morandums for Lawrence Studies cash-chemically cash-chemically B. Sc. that that N ottingham lights would rise and say : By Boots 1 am M. A. From this 1 learn ， though 1 knew it before that that culture has her roots in in the deep dung of cash ，and lore is is a last offshoot of Boots l}. 1. Lawrence and The University of Nottingham The above quoted poem ，“ Nottingham's New University" must have been written written in 1928. The poem refers to the Trent Building of the University which was opened on 10 July 1928. It housed the University College of Nottingham where Lawrence had studied from September 1906 to June 1908. 1908. In this parodic verse Lawrence mocked the building as ‘grand and cakey style' ，and made fun of Jesse Boot who presented the new University. lronically lronically enough ， the University of N ottingham ，more than sixty years after after his death ，is now proud of Lawrence's being the most famous alumnus. And N ottinghamshire County Council announced that 1993 would be Liter. ary ary Heritage Yea r. In June 1993 ，a new life-size statue of Lawrence appeared appeared in the Arts Centre of the University. Anyway Lawrence as well as as Robin Hood is a good business in N ottinghamshire. In In The Rainbow Ursula remembers the time when she entered the University University College of N ottingham. The big college built of stone ， standing in the quiet street ， with a rim of grass and lime-trees all so peaceful: she felt it remote ，a 3 Akio Akio Terada magic-land. magic-land. ... She liked the ha l1， with its big stone chimney piece piece and its Gothic arches supporting the ba 1c ony above. To be sure sure the arches were ugly ， the chimney-piece of cardboard-like carved carved stone ， with its armorial decoration ， looked si l1 y just oppo- site site the bicycle stand and the radiator ， whilst the great notice board with its fluttering papers seemed to slam away al1 sense of retreat retreat and mystery from the far wal l. • •. It was a joy to hear the theory theory of education ， there was such freedom and pleasure in rang- ing ing over the very stuff of knowledge ，and seeing how it moved and lived lived and had its being 2 ). Though the quotation is about Ursula's reminiscence ，it is almost identi- cal cal with Lawrence's. His description of the University Co l1 ege was a favourable favourable and nostalgic evocation of the institution which he attended for a teaching certificate. But the relationship between Lawrence and the University University was not always happy one and when he eloped with the wife of a prominent academic ， Ernest Weekley ， the bitterness and resentment felt by members of the Co l1 ege was damaging to the author's local reputation. The D. H. Lawrence Centre ，one of the important units of the University of of N ottingham ，was established in 199 1. The University Manuscripts Department possesses the formidable Lawrence Collection in the University Library. Library. Today ，few would dispute the University's claim to be a natural centre centre for Lawrence studies. n. n. Visiting Eastwood 1 was born nearly forty-four years ago ， in Eastwood ，a mining village village of some three thousand souls about eight miles from N ottingham and one mile from the small stream ， the Erewash ， 4 Visiting Visiting Eastwood~Some Memorandums for Lawrence Studies ー which divides N ottinghamshire from Derbyshire. It is hilly coun. try ， looking west to Crich and towards Matlock ， sixteen miles away ，and east and north~east towards Mansfield and the Sher- wood Forest district. To me it seemed ，and still seems ，an extremely extremely beautiful countryside ， just between the red sandstone and the oak~trees of N ottingham ，and the cold limestone ， the ash trees ， the stone fences of Derbyshire. To me ， as a child and a young man ，it was still old England of the forest and agricultural past ， there were no motor cars ， the mines were ， in a sense ，an accident accident in the landscape ，and Robin Hood and his merry men were not not very far away3). So wrote Lawrence in 1929 ，a year before his death and ten years after leaving leaving England for virtually the last time ， apart from a few brief visits. He spent more than half his life in Eastwood. Much of his writing is autobiographical autobiographical and in his novels and short stories he repeatedly returned to to this small mining town for their backgrounds. F 一一一 d 一一 Akio Akio Terada visited 1 visited Eastwood ('Bestwood' of Sons and Lovers) for the first time in February 1993. 1 got off the coach from N ottingham at a bus stop in front of of the Eastwood Li brary. It is only ten minutes' walk to the birthplace of Lawrence at 8a Victoria Street. The house is now Lawrence Birthplace Museum and is lovingly restored to the condition of a typical collier's home of of the late 19th century. Here is a faintly ridiculous ridiculous gossip. It was a coincidence that that 1 happened to read read a story in The Daily Daily Telegraph in July July 1993. It report- ed that pilgrims to the the Lawrence birth- place place in Eastwood might might well not be the right house at al l. A descendant of the mid-wife who delivered delivered Lawrence claimed the true birthplace was on the other side of the street. street. Family heirlooms possessed by the descendant included the pair of scissors scissors used to snip Lawrence's umbilical cord. But to return. Lawrence was born in this house on September 11 ，1885. Y ou see a large shop type window of the front room. It means that Lawrence's Lawrence's mother ran a small shop to supplement her husband's income from the pit ， or he may not have been working as a miner at this time. Lawrence himself never described the house in his writings ， probably because because the family moved to a new place soon after his birth. In Sons and Lovers Lovers Paul Morel [Lawrence] is born in the house at “The Bottoms" which 1 will mention below. Lawrence's younger sister ，Ada wrote of these days ， -6- Visiting Visiting Eastwood-Some Memorandums for Lawrence Studies “1 remember nothing of the house where my brother and 1 were born ， for we left left when 1 was only a few months old and Bert[Lawrence] was about two years."4) years."4) 1 left the birthplace and continued to walk along Princes Street to get to W ood Street. 1 turned left then right into Garden Road. Here 1 found the blocks blocks of houses which are still known as “The Breach" (“ The Bottoms" of Sons Sons and Lovers). This is the second Lawrence home at 28 Garden Road and is at the end of a row ， with a garden on three sides. Lawrence wrote in in the chapter 1 of Sons and Lovers as follows : The Bottoms consisted of six blocks blocks of miners' dwellings ， two rows of three ， like the dots on a blank-six blank-six domino ，and twelve houses in in a bloc k. This double row of dwellings dwellings sat at the foot of the rather rather sharp slope from Bestwood ， and looked out ，from the attic win- dows at least ，on the slow c1 imb of the the valley towards Selby.